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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27437461">The Two Magicians</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflymind/pseuds/butterflymind'>butterflymind</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Folk Music, M/M, silliness, slight mention of non-con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 01:42:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,649</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27437461</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflymind/pseuds/butterflymind</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Just Zolf, sitting in a pub, listening to a not quite familiar song.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Two Magicians</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Another entry in my personal sub-genre of 'conversations that happen in bed while the author steadfastly ignores all canon developments.' This time with added folk music. Occurs somewhere in the time jump.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was the first time Zolf had been in a proper pub for a while. There had been various taverns as they travelled across the continent of course, and hotel bars, and many of the sort of drinking dens you didn’t frequent unless you were in need of information or a knife to the ribs. But this was the first thing Zolf would properly recognise as a pub, all dark wood and exposed beams, a crackling fire and a smoke blackened hearth, a stone floor worn smooth around the bar with just the faintest hint of straw caught in the corners and the mortar joints.</p>
<p>They had come back to England just as the season turned sharply into Autumn, the last gentle heat of summer fleeing the biting wind and sudden squalling rain. In another life, Zolf had always enjoyed this time of year. It still made his mouth taste of phantom apples and chestnuts, and put the smell of woodsmoke and long dark nights in his nostrils. It had been more than a few years since he had actually experienced an autumn like that, and he was left with only the lingering wisps of sense memory, but still he found himself leaning on the bar and drinking a good local cider, feeling more content with the world than he had in a long time. Somewhere above him, in the small room they had managed to rent in the pub’s rafters, Oscar was probably already asleep on a lumpy mattress and no doubt building a nest in the sheets and quilt that Zolf would have to untangle later if he wanted any to himself. The thought made him smile into his tankard, still new to this thing between them, still finding the corners and edges of whatever it was made from. But Zolf ran on hope these days, and he took it where he could find it.</p>
<p>He heard the twang of a string as he finished the last drop in his glass. He signalled to the barman for a refill and turned to watch the man in the corner, who had been tuning his guitar with a stealthy air for the past ten minutes. The regulars were paying him little attention, and although the landlord cast a baleful look in his direction every now and then, he had yet to actually say anything.   </p>
<p>“Don’t mind Jack.” Said a voice next to him. He turned to the man on a tall stool, who was nursing a half pint of small beer and following Zolf’s gaze to the singer in the corner. “He’s not too bad.”</p>
<p>“High praise.” Zolf replied. The man was a halfling, tanned and weather-beaten, and likely a farmer if Zolf didn’t miss his guess. In the corner the man Jack began to sing. His playing was fluid, and his voice pleasant, and Zolf recognised the tune in the vague way of something heard in childhood. “He’s alright.”</p>
<p>“He’ll be better once he’s earned enough pennies for beer.” Said the man. “That’s the problem with learning drunk, you’re never quite as good when you’re sober.”</p>
<p>Zolf nodded, thinking ruefully of some of his own skills. </p>
<p>“Don’t recognise you.” The other man said bluntly. “Not from round here?”</p>
<p>“Just passing through.” Zolf’s senses kicked into high alert, but the man’s question seemed innocent enough. And this was the sort of place where everyone knew everyone. He and Oscar had good reason for avoiding the cities, and even the larger towns, but  you were always more noticeable in smaller places. “Zolf.” He held his hand out, and the other man shook it. Zolf noted his work hardened hands, and gave himself a small pat on the back.</p>
<p>“Sam.” He replied. “You staying here then?”</p>
<p>“Yes.” Zolf was still unwilling to give anything away that could be avoided; but all the man would have to do to know they were staying here was to still be sat at the bar when Zolf went up the pub’s back stairs. And from the comfortable way he was settled into his beer, that seemed a racing certainty. </p>
<p>“Well, bad luck to you. I hear the mattresses are lethal.” Zolf chuckled.</p>
<p>“They’re not the best.”</p>
<p>“Is that why you’re down here then? Making yourself a beer cushion?”</p>
<p>“Something like that.” Zolf, who would be taking full advantage of his size by making as much of a bed out of Oscar as he could, agreed amiably enough.</p>
<p>“I’ll drink to that.” Sam downed the rest of his pint on these words, and looked at Zolf with just the faintest air of expectation. Zolf, who was good with a hint when he saw one, caught the Landlord’s eye and ordered another drink for both of them.</p>
<p>“Much obliged.” Sam took a long pull from his tankard. In the corner the singer was well into his stride, eyes closed and swaying slightly in the committed posture of a true folk singer.  “So, where are you coming from?”</p>
<p>“Here and there.” Zolf was non-committal. Sam narrowed his eyes.</p>
<p>“I hear things are bad in the cities.”</p>
<p>“I heard that too.” Zolf took a swig of his own drink, as if trying to bat away memories. Truthfully, he and Oscar hadn’t been near a city or town since landing in England, and had no intention of doing so before they left. But it was as good a ruse as any. If this man wanted to believe they were escaping the horrors of the blue veins in London, Zolf was happy to let him do it.</p>
<p>“Times like this, you really appreciate being such an out of the way place.” Sam continued, still fishing. </p>
<p>“You must do, yes.” Zolf agreed. He was certain that if things continued as they were going, no amount of isolation would save them in the long run and Sam, as if sensing his train of thought, lapsed into silence.</p>
<p>“Oh, I know this one.”  The exclamation was startled out of Zolf after several minutes of quiet. The singer had begun a tune that he recognised, had liked a long time ago in a different life. Sam glanced over his shoulder at the man and grunted.</p>
<p>“You won’t know his version.” He grumbled. </p>
<p>“I do know it though. It’s about the Blacksmith and the Lady right? He chases her and they have a magical battle. They both transform, and in the end he wins.” Zolf felt an absurd sense of pride at digging that up from his memory. It was such a little thing, and from so long ago, but he was happy to still know it. Gods, he must be getting old.</p>
<p>“Not the way he sings it. Just listen.” </p>
<p>Zolf did, turning in his chair so he could look past Sam to the singer. It was true, the words he was singing were not the ones Zolf remembered. The Lady had become a young man, the Blacksmith a Lord with amorous attentions. It wasn ’t quite the version that Zolf was used to, but it didn’t seem so far removed. He gave Sam a look, concerned for a second that his problem might be one that Zolf simply wouldn’t stand for. But Sam just waved his attention back to the singer.</p>
<p>The Lord and the young man were engaged in a magical battle; the pursued transforming himself to escape and the pursuer countering his every move with a transformation of his own. Zolf focussed his attention more closely, trying to follow the details rather than the outline of the story. This was a tale as old as the hills, and he must have heard a dozen versions of it in as many countries. But... this was different. These transformations were more like ones he had seen performed, not folktale magic but real wizardry. He’d never seen anyone turn into the sea, but to make an illusion of it, that was possible. </p>
<p>And somehow it all seemed familiar, like a story he’d heard in parts before, loose pieces of it bouncing around his head. A suspicion  began to form, and with it a knot formed in his chest. In all the versions he’d ever heard the maiden submitted to her pursuer, more or less against her will. As the song reached the last verse he held his breath, only to release it in a great rush when the young man’s illusion of the sea rose up to drown the Lord, who had become a boat. That seemed... unlikely, for all sorts of reasons, but by now suspicion had crystallised to certainty in Zolf’s head and he slipped away from the bar towards the singer as soon as the song had ended. In a moment of inspiration he turned back to the bar, and asked the Landlord for the singer’s usual, as well as another for himself. Thus armed, he crossed the pub floor.</p>
<p>“Ta very much.” The singer said, taking the glass. Zolf had been expecting to wait for him to take a break, but obviously the drink in his hand had made him decide now was the perfect time to do so. He was an aimiable looking man, short for a half-Orc and slightly red in the face. </p>
<p>“You’re welcome. About that last song-” Zolf paused as the man broke into a grin and gave a short bark of laughter, half raising his glass to Zolf.</p>
<p>“You liked that did you?”</p>
<p>“It wasn’t how I remembered it.” Zolf replied, slightly taken aback.</p>
<p>“That’s the good thing about songs lad, they learn and they grow.” Zolf decided to leave alone for a moment being called ‘lad’ by someone who was almost certainly less than half his age.</p>
<p>“I was wondering where you learnt it?” He cut in before the man could warm to a theme he was definitely fond of. “It reminded me of someone I know.” It was a gamble, hoping to gain the man’s interest.</p>
<p>“Did it now?” It certainly worked, although possibly better than Zolf had intended. “That’s very intersting. And where’s this friend of yours from Laddie?” Zolf ground his teeth at this second invocation of ‘lad’, but bit down on his temper again. He was distracted by the shock of realising he didn’t know the answer to the question. Whether or not he would have actually answered it truthfully was beside the point; all of a sudden it had occured to him that he should know.</p>
<p>“Ireland.” He hedged, trying not to sound too uncertain. To his relief this seemed to satisfy the the man’s curiousity, and he laughed again.</p>
<p>“Well, I learnt it from an Irishman, and he swore it was true. So maybe it is your friend.”</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t put it past him.” That slipped out. Zolf looked at the bottom of his tankard ruefully and wondered if it was time to go upstairs for the night. The man for his part gave him an odd look.</p>
<p>“He swore on his God he saw it.” The singer shrugged, slipping his guitar back onto his knee now his glass was empty. “Mind you, I think he would have sworn the sky was green if it brought him a few pennies.”</p>
<p>“Did he say when it happened?” Zolf asked. The singer made a pantomime of thinking deeply.</p>
<p>“No. This was a long time back though.”  Zolf suppressed another uncharitable thought, but the singer seemed to like playing the role of the sage and Gods knows Zolf wasn’t fitted for it.</p>
<p>“How long?”</p>
<p>“Twenty years?” The singer shrugged. “Or there about. I’m guessing, mind.”</p>
<p>“Well, thanks for your help.” Zolf took the hint of the readied guitar and got up to leave.</p>
<p>“Not a problem.” The singer shrugged, but still managed somehow to glance pointedly at the cup of change at his feet. Zolf dug in his pocket and dropped a couple of coins in.</p>
<p>“Much obliged Laddie.” Zolf’s shoulders tightened as he walked away, and he heard the singer chuckle. </p>
<hr/>
<p>In the end it took him forty minutes, and another drink with his friend at the bar, before he managed to extricate himself from the bar and make his way muzzily upstairs. The lights were out in the bedroom, which was almost certainly some kind of complaint about his late hours, but since he could see in the dark anyway it was a fairly pointless one. Zolf climbed into bed, found the warmest thing in it, and curled around its back as best he could.</p>
<p>“Oscar?” He said quietly, testing if he was awake.</p>
<p>“Yes, cold one?” His voice was sleep rough.</p>
<p>“Did I wake you?”</p>
<p>“Yes cold one.”</p>
<p>“Oh. Sorry.” </p>
<p>“Never mind.” Oscar shifted, settling himself again. Zolf felt him begin to relax, and did so himself, before suddenly remembering what he wanted to ask.</p>
<p>“Oscar?” </p>
<p>“Hmm?” </p>
<p>“Are you in a folk song?” Oscar opened one bleary eye at that, considered his options for a moment, and then rolled over to face Zolf.</p>
<p>“Why would you ask that?”</p>
<p>“There was a man singing a song. In the bar. But the words were all wrong.” Zolf, grasping for coherency through drink and sleepiness, tried again. “I mean, I know the song. But it wasn’t the song I know. It sounded like you. Or like something you would do. Or write. Did you write it?”</p>
<p>“Not guilty of the second. No comment on the first.” That woke Zolf and he sat up, staring down at Oscar in the darkness. He looked strangely forlorn.</p>
<p>“It was you?”</p>
<p>“If it’s what I’m thinking of, yes. You’re very clever.”</p>
<p>“I know you when I hear about you.”</p>
<p>“Is that a compliment? Because I’m taking it as one.”</p>
<p>“Of course you are.” Zolf sighed and lay back down, taking the opportunity to use Oscar as a human blanket. “So what really happened? Is there some Lord somewhere I need to introduce to my glaive?”</p>
<p>“No, he’s dead. Pretty much as the story goes.”</p>
<p>“He can’t have drowned in an illusion.”</p>
<p>“He didn’t.” Oscar agreed. “But he was angry. and not very fit. And I was provoking him a bit.”</p>
<p>“You aggrivated a man to death?”</p>
<p>“He had a well timed heart attack, if that’s what you mean. Considering what he was doing at the time, I can’t say I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>“Can’t say I am either.” Zolf shifted, searching for the part of Oscar’s shoulder that was meat and not bone. “But how did that turn into drowning in an illusiory ocean.” </p>
<p>“Well,” Oscar shifted uncomfortably, but whether it was the conversation, or Zolf’s bony elbow poking him in the ribs was hard to say. “He was near some illusiory water at the time.”</p>
<p>“So you really had a magical battle?” Oscar shifted again, definitely not the elbow this time.</p>
<p>“He was after my virtue.”</p>
<p>“Dd you have any virtue left?”</p>
<p>“Not much, but definitely none I wanted to give to him.”</p>
<p>“Fair enough. But couldn’t you have just cracked his skull open like a normal person?” Oscar sniffed.</p>
<p>“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my talents don’t really tend in a skull cracking direction.”</p>
<p>“Oh I’ve noticed.” Zolf grinned at Oscar’s offended expression. “But did you have to be so showy?” He paused for a moment. “Sorry, never mind, forgot who I was talking to.”</p>
<p>“Hmph.” Oscar grumbled. “For the record he started it.”</p>
<p>“Of course he did dear.”</p>
<p>“He did!” Oscar, clearly deciding to win the war if he couldn’t win the battle, curled himself tightly around Zolf, effectively holding him still. “He always was a dramatic bastard.”</p>
<p>“And a rapist?”</p>
<p>“Yes. No one was sad to see him gone.” Oscar’s tone had dropped to something far more serious. “I know it sounds like a silly story, but it wasn’t much fun at the time.” Zolf kissed his chest, his options limited by the position he was held in. But it seemed too much effort to argue with it, when his captor was warm and solid and far more of a comfort than he should have been.</p>
<p>“It sounds like you did everyone a favour.”</p>
<p>“Yes.” Oscar replied. His tone brightened “and they got a good song out of it.”</p>
<p>“Well, it’s ok.”</p>
<p>“It’s great.” Oscar’s smile was pleased, and just a little smug. “I didn’t know anyone was still singing it.”</p>
<p>“Who could forget a song like that?”</p>
<p>“No I mean-” Oscar stopped mid sentence, all enthusiasm from a few moments earlier lost. “Never mind.” Zolf twisted in his grip to study his face, and Oscar, clearly resisting the temptation to turn his face away enitrely, dropped his eyes away from Zolf. </p>
<p>“You use Bard magic, right?” Zolf said slowly, carefully.</p>
<p>“Well, I’m a Bard, so yes.” Oscar sounded uncomfortable.</p>
<p>“And your magic is all about singing and stuff?”</p>
<p>“If by that you mean we can use music to channel mystical energy, then yes.”</p>
<p>“Like I said, you sing to do spells.”</p>
<p>“I suppose, if you must put it like that.” He was trying to distract him into an arguement, Zolf could tell.</p>
<p>“Well, I suppose, if someone made a song about your magic, and lots of people sang it, that’d be a pretty powerful focus, wouldn’t it?” Oscar shifted, uncomfortable. Zolf held on.</p>
<p>“I suppose so, yes. It would probably be like a constant connection to magic, renewed every time the song was sung. Like a light in the darkness.”</p>
<p>“And then, if someone took that connection away, made it so you couldn’t feel that channel of magic, it’d probably be very uncomfortable.” Oscar gave a short bark of humourless laughter.</p>
<p>“Yes. Uncomfortable. Or like being blinded.”  The leg that wore the anti magic shackle twitched. Zolf ran a soothing hand down his flank. “It’s odd to think it was there, just downstairs, and I couldn’t feel it.”</p>
<p>“Could you always feel it? Before?”  </p>
<p>“Not always, at least, I have no way to tell. But if it was close, yes. It seemed like an excellent idea at the time.”</p>
<p>“So you did write it then?” Zolf laughed, and kissed his nose, but even as he did so Oscar was shaking his head.</p>
<p>“Not exactly. Someone... someone from home, they saw what happened. Embellished it a bit, put it to an old tune. Then it found its way around, got mixed up with another old song.”</p>
<p>“Did that weaken it?”</p>
<p>“Strengthened, if anything.” Oscar shrugged. “Not quite sure why, something to do with belief and old stories, I’m sure. That’s probably more your department than mine.”</p>
<p>“Don’t look at me. Clearly I never got the hang of belief.”</p>
<p>“I’m not sure that’s as true as you think it is.” Oscar lifted a hand to rub it over his face, then settled it back around Zolf. “Anyway, I didn’t stop it. Probably couldn’t have if I’d wanted to, but one always likes to pretend there is control to be had over these things. And it doesn’t matter now, regardless.”</p>
<p>“You’ll get it back again y’know, someday.”</p>
<p>“There you go again with your belief.”</p>
<p>“Not a belief.” Zolf said, squirming into a more comfortable position now Oscar had loosened his grip. He rolled over so Oscar could curl around his back, tucking Oscar’s arms around himself like a blanket. “Statement of fact. You’re too bloody minded not to get it back, deep down.”</p>
<p>“I’m  not bloody minded, I’m highly adaptable.”</p>
<p>“If you weren’t bloody minded, you wouldn’t be here doing this. And if I wasn’t bloody minded, I wouldn’t be with you.”</p>
<p>“I’ll let you hold on to your illusions that this is any sort of choice.” This was the essence of an arguement they’d had several times already. “And speaking of illusions of choice, did I tell you where the powers that be want us off to next?”</p>
<p>“No?”</p>
<p>“Japan.” Zolf raised his eyebrows, not that Oscar was in a position to see him.</p>
<p>“That’s a long journey.”</p>
<p>“Yes, and no chance of a lift says Curie. Just you and me and a long sailing voyage.”</p>
<p>“However shall we cope?” A slither of humour had crept into Zolf’s voice.</p>
<p>“We shall have to take our pleasures where we can.” Zolf could hear the smile. It warmed him more than the body in the bed.</p>
<p>“I suppose so. Well, if there are any magical battles to be fought en route I’ll leave them to you, as you’re clearly the most experienced.”</p>
<p>“I prefer to win battles with my tongue these days.” This time Zolf turned, craning his neck deliberately so Oscar could see his face.</p>
<p>“I’m not falling for that one.”</p>
<p>“Even if I ask nicely?”</p>
<p>“Turn yourself into the sea and we’ll talk.”</p>
<p>“You know perfectly well that’s not possible.” Oscar sniffed with mock offence. “And besides, I know your track record with water.”</p>
<p>“The song says you can. Says you killed a man.”</p>
<p>“I made an illusion of the sea. And I didn’t kill anyone, I was just coincidentally standing next to a man who died.”</p>
<p>“You stick to that story then.” Zolf was grinning at him in the dark. He leaned up to kiss the underside of his chin, then settled back down, his back to Oscar. “Now shut up and go to sleep, we’ve got passage to book in the morning.”</p>
<p>“Oh joy. More boats.” Oscar slid down so he could tuck his head behind Zolf’s, breathing softly on the back of his neck.</p>
<p>“You love the sea.” Zolf said softly. “And one day you’re going to show me how to make it.”</p>
<p>“If you say so.” Oscar agreed, sounding unconvinced. Zolf closed his eyes to the soft breathing on the back of his neck, his thoughts becoming sleepy and slow. He was only just aware, on the edge of drifting off, when the breathing became a soft hum, a low voice singing a song he had thought until tonight he knew well.</p>
<p>“Goodnight.” He murmured. The song didn’t stop, but a soft kiss was dropped into his hair. “Magician.”</p>
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